Monday, March 12, 2012

1203.2025 (S. Ihnatsenka et al.)

Conductance quantization in graphene nanoconstrictions with
mesoscopically smooth but atomically stepped boundaries
   [PDF]

S. Ihnatsenka, G. Kirczenow
We present the results of million atom electronic quantum transport calculations for graphene nanoconstrictions with edges that are smooth apart from atomic scale steps. We find conductances quantized in integer multiples of 2e2/h and a plateau at ~0.5*2e2/h as in recent experiments [Tombros et al., Nature Physics 7, 697 (2011)]. We demonstrate that, surprisingly, conductances quantized in integer multiples of 2e2/h occur even for strongly non-adiabatic electron backscattering at the stepped edges that lowers the conductance by one or more conductance quanta below the adiabatic value. We also show that conductance plateaus near 0.5*2e2/h can occur as a result of electron backscattering at stepped edges even in the absence of electron-electron interactions.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2025

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